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It's boring at this point but considering that, apparently, the 'progressive' line on poverty hasn't changed much, it's worth noting that race is a factor that shapes what poverty looks like. It has never been a valid move to go from Detroit to Copenhagen and act thunderstruck as to how much better the 'Nordic Model' is to the American one.
That is not to say that there doesn't exist a big problem with poverty. The effects of inflation with regards to basic things like housing are felt everywhere. But since the immediate solution to that problem of reducing immigration isn't allowed by lib/left/progressives, nor, in fact, conservatives, I don't see an end in sight to the 'housing issue' in particular. And I feel like you could run down the list of every single element that constitutes the problem of 'poverty' and come away with a similar result for the vast majority of them.
I think it's ultimately easier for the kind hearted to look at the harrowing reality of poverty and just feel bad about it. To imagine that those suffering are just victims of circumstance. That their true humanity is drowned by the horrors of an evil capitalist system that values profit over kindness. Greed over empathy. And to the extent that they would be right, I'd agree that 'something should be done' to lessen the suffering. To get those who are able 'back on the right track'. To lessen the burden on those who are struggling with 'fighting the good fight'. But, in my experience, there also exists a kind of person that invited every single issue they are facing into their own life. And solving their issues is much more complicated and difficult than any mainstream conception can deal with.
White Americans fail along these metrics far above their European peers.
The murder rate of whites in america is well above twice that of western Europe's total rates when you don't account for the extreme overrepresnstion of non-whites in those statistics in Europe.
Consider Sweden with its recent murder spree and gang wars. The general murder rate is still about half that of white American murders.
The same extends to other areas. The rate of homelessness for white Americans is about 2-4x that of general homelessness in western Europe ( and far higher than any European nation), and the homeless are far more anti-social.
All that said, I don't think that adopting a "European" approach will necessarily solve America's issues, and the same goes for the growing issues in nations like Sweden.
That's true and not true depending on what state/country you are looking at. Vermont has a very similar homeless population to Ireland, for example. I'm also terminally skeptical of any white perpetrator rates coming from America considering whites and hispanics are often lumped together. And whilst there are certainly parts of America that are poor, the same can also be said for European countries that aren't western.
They are only lumped together in the FBI UCS statistics though. For homelessness and BJS victimisation studies they are separated and homelessness doesn't seem to correlate with state wealth and looking at an individual state for this seems strange due to the phenomenon where homeless across the country gravitate towards states with more inclement weather and services that cater to them, just like they do in Sweden and end up in Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö.
For victimisation, the crime rate of whites is marginally higher than their murder rate (combined with Hispanics) but if we use the relationship between black victimisation and murder rate and apply that to get an adjusted rate for whites, we still end up with a murder rate far above that of any European wester European country, Nordic or otherwise.
Here are the murder rates per 100,000 people in a bunch of Western European non-microstates and the adjusted white murder rate in the United States:
Norway: 0.49
Italy: 0.53
Austria: 0.66
Portugal: 0.74
Ireland: 0.75
Denmark: 0.83
Germany: 0.87
Netherlands: 0.94
Sweden: 1.07
Finland: 1.12
France: 1.16
United States (adjusted white murder rate): 1.58
Bear in mind that these are total murder rates for the European countries and the same issue with minorites committing disproportionate amount of crime (often even the majority), especially murder, exists here but isn't accounted for.
This doesn't contradict anything I've said. Pending on state and country you have higher or lower rates. For murder various states have marginally higher rates than many EU countries, and are lower or on par with others, such as Finland which stands at 1.5 when we look at intentional homicide victims. As I said before, poverty is a big problem, but if you account for race the problem looks completely different.
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